Mercy's Debt

ELEVEN



“As I stated before,” Robert began, “I was born a human in 1820.”

“My birth name was Robert Joseph Campbell. I was raised and educated on a farm in Bracknoll, a rural settlement located a few miles east of London. When I was ten, my parents passed away of smallpox, which, amazingly, I failed to contract.

“I was a young boy with no siblings or other family, thus I lost the farm. I was shipped off to the city, where I was given a place to rest my head on a single-sized mattress that I shared with two other boys inside a community house for orphaned children.

“I was put to work the same day I arrived in London. The Industrial Revolution was in full force by this point, and so was the need for factory workers. Things were very different back then, and it was not uncommon for children as young as five to become laborers.

“As an adolescent, I would frequently work eighteen hour days in the factories, toiling away behind equipment that could easily rip a boy in two. Needless to state, the wages were terrible. If a person made enough coin to put food in their belly every day, they were considered lucky. The manufacturing plants were oppressively hot during the summer, bitterly cold in the winter, and the conditions were unsanitary. There were few windows, no sanctioned toilets, and the ventilation was inadequate. As a result, disease was rampant. And so was death.

“One night in 1849- I was a twenty-nine year old man at this point- I witnessed something which changed my life.

“I was one of the few men skilled enough to maneuver some of the more complicated machinery located by the manager’s top level office; thus I would frequently work on the floor completely alone. It was very late on this particular evening, about midnight. I was just finishing up for the night when an elegant man entered the building and went into the office.

“He was an aristocrat, wearing the finest clothing that I had ever seen. But he was also as white as a sheet, so I believed him ill. I immediately recognized this man for being what he was: the factory owner. They would come by from time to time late at night in order to remove money from the safe after the cash bundles grew too large to store.

“The man was unaware of my presence as he left the office and crossed the room carrying a tall sack of money in his arms. Knowing my place as a filthy underling, I deemed it in my best interest to just stay out of his way until he left.

“As the factory owner neared the exit, two men entered the building and rushed towards him. One of the men was carrying a wrench; it was apparent that they had it in their sights to steal the cash. Without hesitation, the robber with the wrench hit the owner in the skull.

“The owner did not flinch away from the weapon because of the tall sack obstructing his view, thus he absorbed the full impact of the blow. He hit the floor with a thud, and a pool of blood began to form around his body.

“The two robbers began to argue. From what I ascertained, the unarmed burglar did not realize that the other man went into the robbery with the intention of harming the owner. The armed robber paid no attention to his partner, and continued to beat the wounded man’s lifeless body with the wrench.

“The unarmed robber became frightened and snatched the sack from the floor. He attempted to flee, but his partner turned on him and began to wail on him with the wrench, killing him with just a few blows.

“Their scuffle was the distraction I needed in order to sneak up behind the attacker. I grabbed a metal pipe from a nearby table and subdued the man, hitting him once across the face. I had hurt him badly, but not killed him. Still, he was injured severely enough that he did not get up to fight me.”

He sat back in the booth, shaking his head wistfully. “Are you certain that you wish to hear all of this? I believe that I am monopolizing our conversation, Mercy,” he smiled. “I am afraid that you must find all of this terribly uninteresting.”

I was captivated, not only entranced by the sound of his molten voice, but by his vivid recollection of such a turbulent period in his life. “I am anything but uninterested, Robert,” I gushed. “Please, continue.”

“As you wish,” he said. “So, all three men were lying at my feet. One of them was dead, and the other two were gravely injured. I reached down and grabbed the sack, which was filled with more money than I had ever seen in my entire life.

“I decided to flee with the cash, I am ashamed to admit. Then, however, the factory owner moaned pitifully. He reached out and curled his hand around my ankle.

“I peered down into his face and was startled; he was nearly identical to my own father. He croaked “help me,” but I did not know what to do. He was dying. There was no doubt in my mind.

“I threw the bag of money aside, removed the handkerchief from his pocket, and pressed it to his seeping skull. It was no use; the handkerchief was saturated in blood instantly.

“The owner then gestured to the thief that I had hit with the pipe, asking me to drag his body over and position it at his side. I did as he asked, presuming that he wanted to look into the eyes of his killer as he passed on- many odd rituals surrounded death in the Victorian era. Instead, the owner pulled himself on top of the burglar’s body, bit into his neck, and drained him completely of blood.

“I observed the entire incident, frozen in place with shock.

“When the owner was finished, he stood up, extended his hand to me, giving me his thanks. His wound was no longer bleeding. In fact, he was entirely healed, as if he had never been hurt at all.” He paused, laughing quietly at the memory.

“And?” I asked impatiently. “What did you do?”

“I would like to tell you that I merely ran away, but that would be downplaying my reaction,” he chuckled once again. “I sprinted from the building and screamed my head off the entire way home. I went to bed that night with a scarf knotted around my neck, fearful that the man would come and drink my blood as I slept.”

“Did he?” I asked, rubbing my own neck.

“He did not,” he said. “And so I went into work the next day-”

“You actually went back to the factory?” I interjected. “Why?”

“A man did not have many employment options at that time, Mercy. It was either go back to work or starve,” he stated simply.

“Of course. I’m sorry for the interruption,” I apologized. “I won’t cut you off again.”

“I like it when you ask me questions,” he smiled. “Not many women do. I appreciate that you have an in interest in my modest beginnings, and not merely in the wealthy vampire that I am today.”

Oh, I had an interest all right.

He reached across the table and seized my hand softly. This time, he didn’t pull away.

“When I went back into the factory in the morning, I was told by the plant foreman that my services were no longer required. I was furious; I had saved the owner’s life and he repaid me by having me fired.

“As I was leaving, I was met outside by a frail old man on a horse-drawn carriage. He informed me that I was to be his replacement as a steward on a country estate, an estate which belonged to the factory owner. When I attempted to protest, he assured me that it was a requirement, not a request, and that he had already taken the liberty of packing my things for me. I looked around the carriage and, remarkably, the few possessions I owned were strapped to the rear.”

“What did you do?”

“I got in. I figured that if the owner had wanted to murder me, he would have already done so. Also, to go from being a lowly factory worker to a steward was a miraculous advancement. As the old man expressed to me on the ride out to the country, it would soon be my task to oversee many domains within the sprawling estate: the house employees, the care of the horses, the grounds. It was the modern day equivalent of a mailroom worker being promoted to vice president of a corporation overnight. It was more than I ever dreamed possible.

“I was given private quarters in the rear of the house. It was the first time in nineteen years that I had my own room, that I had been truly without company, and the silence put me on edge.

“Later that evening, the factory owner paid me a visit. He introduced himself as Leopold Sorin. He looked much younger without all the blood smeared on his face, and I imagined his age to be close to mine. He was just as pale as the night before, with jet-black hair and light yellow eyes. He frightened me in a way I cannot describe with mere words.”

“I understand completely,” I said, recalling the night I saw Stephano sprawled on the ceiling. I’d passed out when he waved at me. I couldn’t imagine what I would have done if I’d seen him drain the blood from another human- probably wet my pants.

“I was thankful for the opportunity that Leopold had provided me, yet I was not accustomed to kindness from strangers or having any sort of good fortune. Plus, there was the incident that I had witnessed the night before. While it was extremely improper to do so, I could not help but ask why he had summoned me to his estate.

“Leopold explained that his previous steward was getting too old to properly fulfill his duties. He needed a man that he could trust. Because I had saved his life instead of robbing him, he decided that I was the man for the job.”

“Did you ask him what he was?” I inquired. “Why he drank that man’s blood?”

“I did not dare. It was not my place. Leopold posed no immediate threat to me, so I felt it best not to rock the boat. But that is not to say that I did not find his behavior peculiar. In the following two years that I worked on the estate, I never saw him go out in the daylight. When he did make his appearances at night, he never ate, and he never had the same companion at his side.

“Despite his oddities, and even though my social class was several levels below his, Leopold and I became friends of sorts. He once had a wife and child who had passed on for reasons he did not divulge. I believed that he was perhaps lonely, which I now have come to accept as being a basic consequence of vampirism.

“Leopold and I would sometimes ride on horseback through the fields at night. He was very fond of his horses. Other times, he would call me into his chambers and ask me to tell him about my parents, and of my childhood experiences on the farm in Bracknoll.

“Just after I celebrated my thirty-first birthday, I fell ill. The sickness began with night sweats, and then progressed into a constant fever. I began to rapidly lose weight, which Leopold would often comment on, and I would downplay in return. Although he and I were friendly, I feared that he would terminate my employment if he suspected that I was in poor health.

“From the moment I began coughing up blood, I recognized that I had tuberculosis. I had most likely contracted it back when I worked at the factory. The disease can lay dormant for many years, you see.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “That’s awful.”

“Yes,” he concurred. “It truly was. I would not wish the disease on even my worst enemy.”

“What did you do?”

“I kept working. I hid the illness as best as I could, but my suffering was evident in every movement I made. The staff avoided me at all costs, for they certainly knew that I was contagious. Yet Leopold continued on with our visits, mercifully suggesting less physically strenuous activities as my condition weakened. He never once asked me outright if I was ill. I believed it was his way of conserving the dignity of a dying man.

“One afternoon, I was struck by a fit of coughs while I was in the stables tending to the horses. These coughs were like none I had ever experienced. These were suffocating coughs, coughs which brought me to my knees.

“I gazed on the ground before me, and I discovered that I was emitting gobs of blood from my mouth. ‘This is it,’ I thought. I accepted that I was going to die.

“I crawled into the enclosure of my favorite horse, Cobalt, an animal I loved as much as I would my own child. She whinnied sadly, nudging her head against me as if she, too, knew that I was passing. I curled up into a ball next to her. I closed my eyes, waiting for death to take me, to finally find some peace away from the never-ending pain.”

He peered into my face. “Are you crying, Mercy?” He reached over and dabbed a tear from my cheek.

“Yes.” I sniffed, touching a knuckle under my eye. “I’m such a sap, I know. That bit about the horse is just so sad.”

“It was, and you are very sweet for feeling such emotion. Cobalt was a lovely beast.” He smiled thoughtfully.

He paused, frowning at his watch. “I am afraid our time together is up.”

My heart sank. “Really? Have we already been together for five hours?”

“I am afraid so,” he said sullenly. “Actually, we have been talking a lot longer than that.”

“Well, I don’t need to go, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“You will not get into some kind of trouble from working overtime?”

I frowned. Great; yet another awkward conversation about our time together.

“I didn’t mean that I wanted to bill you for my time or anything. I would just like to hear the rest of your story,” I said quickly. “Off the clock.”

“I see. Well, I would like to carry on our evening together as well,” he said.

“Good.”

He settled back again, continuing with his narrative. “What happened next in the story is difficult for me to discuss, as I am unable to distinguish between what was hallucination and what was reality.

“I am certain that I had been asleep in the stable for hours before Leopold found me. I know this to be fact because the sky had turned black during my restless slumber.

“Leopold was frantic, slapping me hard across the face, shrieking for me to wake up. I opened my eyes, and he hysterically asked me if I wanted to live. I cackled madly in response, amused that he had thought to ask such a senseless question when I was so close to the brink of death.

“It was the sting that brought me back to consciousness. It was an entirely new pain from what I was used to. It centered on my jugular, but at the same time it numbed the aching in my lungs. It was like nothing I had ever felt, like a bee string, injection, sunburn, animal bite, and a sexual release occurring in the same spot simultaneously.

“I realized, then, that Leopold was draining my blood. When he pulled away from my neck, he bit his own wrist and made me drink from the wound. I resisted, but the strength of a human is no match for that of a vampire.

“I woke up in my bed two days later as a creature of the night.” He said this easily, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “My tuberculosis was cured, but I did have a newly acquired aversion to the sun.” He raised his eyebrows cheekily.

My brain flooded with questions. I had to check myself before I bombarded him with all ten thousand of them.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Where was Leopold when you woke up?”

“He was right next to my bed. He had quite a bit of convincing to do before I fully believed him about what I had become.”

“Where is he now?”

“He still resides in England. I see him every few years.”

“When did you leave him?”

“I remained with Leopold for a little over forty years. As we grew closer, he increased my job duties, eventually giving me my own factory in London, and then my own division of the company in America.

“Since we spent so much time together, and because we were both so pale, we began to tell the humans who inquired about our association that we were brothers. As such, I went by the surname Sorin for a time.

“You will find, Mercy, that most vampires have had several surnames throughout the years, depending on their age. We must constantly reinvent ourselves in order to avoid persecution and to keep any suspecting humans off our scent. Remember, there was a time when we did not have blood banks,” he said tellingly.

I shivered, wondering how many ‘suspecting humans’ he’d sampled.

“Leopold and I claimed that we both suffered from a rare skin pigment deficiency that made us extremely susceptible to sunburn. All the same, the humans grew leery of us because we never aged.

“Leopold and I decided that it would be best if we separated. My first move away from my maker was back into London. My next was to America in 1912.”

“You said your last name was Sorin. How did you become Bramson?”

He looked out the window. “I am afraid that this story will have to be my last.” His grip on my hand tightened. “I would stay with you all night and all day if I could, but the evil sun would not allow such a thing.”

“Gotcha,” I said, cringing at the thought of this beautiful man bursting into flames. “Is sunlight the only thing that can kill you?” I asked quickly.

“Yes and no. We can be killed just like a mortal man if we do not drink blood within a few hours after being fatally injured. This is why Leopold would have died in the factory had I not given him the thief’s blood to drink. As vampires, we can have stakes pushed through our hearts, be burned- by fire only, the sun will always kill us- and be beheaded, but we will not be permanently harmed if we consume human blood.”

“So you’re not so tough after all,” I said sarcastically. “Okay, so tell me how you became Robert Bramson,” I commanded.

“This piece of personal history dates back to around 1895. It revolves around a run-in I had with a human Irish writer fellow named Abraham.

“Abraham, like Leopold, was a thriving member of London’s high society. I never grew to know him very well, though, for reasons that will soon become clear.

“One evening during a function, Abraham and I got to chatting about the book he was working on at the time. His latest novel, he told me, was on the subject of a supernatural nobleman from Transylvania, a dark immortal who drank blood from human victims.

“In order to create this monster- and those were his words, monster- he had spent the last few years researching Eastern European folklore. The evil deeds he described this creature carrying out were very similar to what Leopold and I did on a nightly basis.

“I was inwardly horrified as I listened to Abraham speak, and for a moment, I contemplated luring the man away from the function and murdering him. He was, however, the first human that I had ever encountered who had come so close to uncovering my secret. This fascinated me, and so I decided to wait on killing him.

“When Abraham finished outlining his tale, I slapped him on the back, commending him for having a wild and wicked imagination. I departed his company shortly thereafter, and avoided him for the rest of his years in London.

“Had it not been for Leopold’s mindreading talents, I would have believed that Abraham knew of vampires, and that he was merely toying with me. But he did not, Leopold assured me. Amazingly, he had invented the story all on his own.

“Abraham’s words dismayed me on such a level that I never forgot his name. When I moved to America, I decided to create a moniker based on my brief acquaintanceship with the author, my indirect way of paying homage to his sinister mind. On the ship to Long Island, I came up with the name Bramson, as in son of Bram.

“I figured it was only fair, considering that poor Abraham never had the pleasure of realizing just how close he was to an actual vampire.”

My mouth fell open. “Oh my… Wow. That is even better than seeing Elvis in concert.”

He threw back his head and laughed heartily. “Oh, Mercy. Whatever will I do after we part company?”